


two chairs facing the window

by humanveil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Insanity, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: He visits. Draco’s condition never changes, but still, he visits.





	two chairs facing the window

**Author's Note:**

> Ignores the end of Deathly Hallows. Title taken from a Siken poem, though I can’t remember which one. It’s sadder than initially planned, but I hope you like it anyway!

He can’t see out into the hallway, but Draco doesn’t have to. He recognises the footsteps, recognises the way the weight shifts, the pressure, barely audible but still distinctive.

It must be that time of the week, he thinks.

He stays seated in his little chair, head resting back against the uncomfortable cushion as he stares at the window. It’s been magically modified to show him something beautiful, a set of scenery he’d been allowed to choose once he’d understood what they were asking. He’d picked the ocean option, had been fascinated at the ripples of water, the gentle blue, the way the light reflects through. His window makes it seem as if the hospital is underwater, as if he and his healers and his little white room are as much a part of the ocean as the creatures that often drift by, as the vibrantly coloured sea flora.

It calms him. He can’t place why, but it does.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and he leans to the side, bends his body around to watch it open. He smiles when he sees his personal carer, her face turned in something friendly like it always is, something soft and gentle, something that helps him trust her.

“Hi,” she greets, her voice a quiet murmur. She steps inside, pushes the door open completely, and Draco’s smile grows into a grin when he sees the body behind her. “I brought you a visitor.”

The man steps through, wrapped up in layers of soft, black fabric, his hair swept away from his face, a few stray strands tucked behind an ear. He looks the same as he always does; tired, mostly, but his face morphs into something akin to tenderness when he looks at Draco, something like a melancholic type of fondness.

“He’s doing better today,” his healer says, but she’s not talking to Draco. Draco knows because she’s not looking towards him. “Very responsive.”

The man dips his head in acknowledgement, his eyes never leaving Draco. His healer looks between them with a smile, hand reaching for the door handle. With a playful _be good for Severus,_ she leaves.

“I drew a dragon,” Draco tells him once the door shuts, once her footsteps have faded and they’re left alone in the room. “Want to see?”

Severus’ lips twitch, a ghost of a smile. “Of course,” he says, and Draco reaches for his sketchbook as Severus settles into the second chair.

*

Draco can’t remember who the man is.

Sometimes, on good days – the really, _really_ good days – he thinks he might be able to. Thinks he gets flashes of memories, of his life before the hospital, of what he’d been before he’d turned into this. But he doesn’t trust himself, can’t be sure if it’s memories or dreams, if it’s things that had actually happened or just wishful thinking, just his mind clutching onto something, anything. A poor, poor excuse of a coping mechanism.

So no, Draco doesn’t remember who the man is. But he likes him, thinks, maybe, he might love him. Thinks, maybe, that the man loves him, too. He’d have to, wouldn’t he, to keep coming back after all this time? To still be here after so long? Draco can’t keep track of the days, but he does know it’s been years since his arrival, years since he’d first been admitted. And still, the man keeps coming, week after week, without fail.

No one else does that, not anymore. Not even the woman who’d claimed to be his mother; but Draco thinks he understands that. She’d used to visit every day, and every day Draco had seen the tears in her eyes, had seen the pain that lurked behind crystal blue, had seen the sadness and frustration embedded in every line of her beautiful face. So when every day had turned into every week, every fortnight, every month – Draco hadn’t minded so much. Not when it meant she could greet him with a smile, sad as it was.

Besides, he still had Severus to keep him company.

*

Draco’s room is nicer than most of the others. He knows because he used to sneak out at night, used to walk the hospital halls and disturb the other patients. There was never any reason behind it, he just got bored. Locked up like he was, it’s no surprise.

He has his window, and his two uncomfortable chairs. There’s the bed in the corner, the mattress softer than anything else Draco has felt in the hospital, and the shelves next to that. They hold books, mostly. Some letters. The paper and pencils he’s allowed to draw with. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than most people get, and Draco likes that.

“Again?” Severus asks when Draco hands him a book. His lips twitch, his hand smoothing over the torn cover. “I’ll be able to cite it soon.”

“It’s my favourite,” Draco says, plopping down in front of the window. He pouts slightly, looks up at Severus. “Please?”

Severus sighs but takes his seat, opens the book and gets comfortable. _“There was once a handsome, rich, and talented young warlock,”_ he starts, voice soft and firm. Draco smiles, lets the familiar words and calming voice wash over him.

He’s asleep by the time Severus leaves.

*

Draco feels guilty, sometimes. Most of the time. It’s no one’s fault but his.

He can’t help but feel that he owes something, that he owes his visitors a better reality – one where he shares the memories they have of him. One where the memories still mean something.

Severus may hide his emotions better than Draco’s other visitors, but he has to feel something, Draco thinks. Some type of frustration, betrayal; if not at Draco than at the people who put him here.  

But there’s nothing. In the beginning, when the man’s guard had been down, Draco had thought he could see hope flickering behind dark eyes, a want for something Draco knew not of. But it had diminished over time, had faded to bitter acceptance, and now Draco can’t see it anymore. Sometimes, he wonders if it was ever actually there.

Sometimes, it’s just too hard to decipher delusion from reality, vivid dreams from memory.

Sometimes, on the bad days – the bad, _bad_ days – he wonders if Severus exists at all.

*

Draco doesn’t hear Severus enter, doesn’t hear his healer unlock his door. He’s in a trance, sat in his chair that faces the window, eyes wide and unblinking as he stares. He’s waiting for his favourite fish to come round again – the big one with the sliver colouring that shines rainbow. He’s always liked shiny things; or, at least, he thinks he has.

He does see Severus take the other seat, though. A shadow in the corner of his eye.  He doesn’t move to greet him, doesn’t look away from his window. He knows he should, but he simply doesn’t have the energy to.

But Severus doesn’t push him. He just sits there with him, quiet and patient, leaving only when they’re told visiting hours are over.

It’s nice.

*

Sometimes Draco knows his dreams are dreams and not memories, because he has visions of things that just wouldn’t happen in real life. Because they take place outside of the hospital, in private areas he’s sure he’s never been to. Or if he has, not in a long time, not since he’d been admitted – and he’s always older in these visions. Always looks like he does now, not how he’d looked in the photographs Narcissa had once showed him.

The dreams almost always involve Severus. Draco can’t decide if he likes them or not.

Well, he likes _them_ , he just isn’t fond of what happens afterwards. Doesn’t like feeling sweaty and sticky, doesn’t like the empty feeling, the reminder of his own loneliness. Doesn’t like knowing it will never, ever happen in real life.

He has enough things to be depressed over, he doesn’t want one more.

Still, he prefers them to the other ones. Will take flashes of pale skin and delusional fantasy over the nightmares – the images of war, of pain. The half-dreams, half-memories that leave him shaking, where the sound of his own screaming is what pulls him from slumber.

*

He sleeps a lot these days. Most of it is medicated, because his screaming used to wake people up and the potions help stop that. Draco doesn’t mind, really. The taste isn’t so bad once you’re used to it.

Only they don’t do anything for him this time, and when he wakes up, he’s sweaty and shaking in his bed, eyes open wide, breath heavy and rapid with fear. There’s a hand on his shoulder, a barley-there touch, and when his eyes finally focus, Draco sees Severus standing above him, brow furrowed lightly with concern.

Unconsciously, he reaches for the hand, holds on to Severus wrist while his breath steadies. He can still feel the familiar sting of tears behind his eyes, the pressure in his temple.  He sits up, pushes the covers out of the way, and tugs for Severus to sit next to him.

“What was it?” Severus asks, and Draco shakes his head, eyes squeezing shut as if to dispel the thoughts away. Severus sees a stray tear fall, feels Draco lean towards him slightly, and it’s the only warning he gets before Draco’s body is half in his lap. Before there’s the press of fingers digging into his shoulders, the sound of miserable hiccups in his ear.

“I’m sorry,” Draco says softly, words barely audible through his sniffling. Severus feels Draco’s tears wet his neck, and he closes his eyes, rubs a soothing hand down the younger man’s back.

“It’s not your fault,” Severus tells him. He means it, means it more than Draco could ever know. “You didn’t do this,” he continues, and he hadn’t. No one had, no one other than the men behind the curses, the cloaked figures who’d chanted lethal words like love letters.

Draco pulls back, only enough to look him in the eye. “Did you love me?” he whispers, and it sounds desperate. Like he needs to know _right now._ Like he’ll die if Severus doesn’t tell him the answer.

Severus exhales slowly, quietly. “Yes,” he says, and Draco buries his face back into Severus’ shoulder. Severus tightens his grip, hugs him back because he knows Draco _needs_ him to. “I still do,” he murmurs, a near-soundless confession.

Draco tangles his fingers in Severus’ robe, clutching on that much harder. “I’m sorry,” he says again, because there isn’t anything else he can think to say.

“Don’t be.”

*

There are still days where Draco expects it to stop. He’s scared that one day he’ll wake up and Severus won’t be there. Terrified of weekly visits slowly fading to nothing.

Or maybe he won’t even get that. Maybe Severus will do the same thing most of the others had, maybe he’ll disappear without a word one day, will leave Draco wondering where he went; if something had happened. If he’d been hurt, if he’d died, or if it’d simply become too much. If he’d got sick of Draco’s presence, of the effort it took to be around him.

Merlin knows it wouldn’t be the first time the hospital had seen such a thing. And that just makes it all the more tragic, doesn’t it? How people can voluntarily leave behind those who had involuntarily forgotten them. How they can so easily forget the memories some patients were trying desperately to remember.

But despite his worries, it never happens.

Severus continues to come, week after week. And when Draco admits that he wants to see him more, he takes the time to make it happen. No matter how hard it is to watch, how hard it is to see Draco’s condition stay at an untreatable stage, he visits.

It’s worth it, in the end, to see Draco happy. Regardless of how fleeting it may be.


End file.
